


No Regrets

by Leni



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Gen, Sharing a Body, season 3b
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-19
Updated: 2016-02-19
Packaged: 2018-05-21 15:35:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 423
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6056890
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Leni/pseuds/Leni
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>It's his father's love, too desperate to keep him close, too willing to sacrifice anything for his son's sake... </i>
</p><p>
  <i>Too futile, in the end.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	No Regrets

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Marlex at [Comment Fic](http://comment-fic.livejournal.com/696041.html?thread=91643881#t91643881). Prompt: **the attack was fatal...he/she just hasn't died yet**

This is his last breath, stretched over weeks and months and his father's stubbornness. This is the last beat of his heart, though it doesn't beat in his own chest anymore. This is not life, yet neither is it death - a careful balance, held together by the power of the Dark One and fed by the deterioration of his very sanity.

It's his father's love, too desperate to keep him close, too willing to sacrifice anything for his son's sake... 

Too futile, in the end.

Because here in this limbo, Neal understands what his father would refuse to accept: there is no salvation for him. There won't be a loophole he can squeeze through. True Love's kiss is useless when there's no curse holding him.

The moment he leaves the safety of his father's binding spell, his life will be forfeit.

It _already_ is.

"It's all right, Papa," he wants to tell his father, if there was a way he could communicate with him. But they might as well be worlds apart again. 

A body can only be ruled by one mind, and the original owner holds precedence, no matter that his mind is being torn and splintered further open with every day that passes. And Neal, the beloved splinter, only manages to break through occasionally, when his father is at his weakest, and once he surfaces, it's only him and his father is nowhere to be found.

"You can let go now," he would say as well.

This time it is he who would break his father's hold on him, and gladly fall to his fate. He is ready now, because this is not a solution, but a heartbreak held in pause for too long. Life needs to go on. His father needs all his wits if he has a hope to escape Zelena, instead of grasping at the clues scattered among the shards of what used to be the smartest mind.

Neal needs to go. "And that's okay, Papa," he whispers, hoping it will reach his father somehow.

It doesn't, of course. 

But the moment he has a chance to cut himself off, he will take it. He won't blame anybody, not even himself. He made his choice, and now he accepts the exchange he unwittingly made at the Vault.

He finally understands what it's like, to make a deal you don't understand for the sake of someone you love.

In the end, he proved to be his father's son - and Neal doesn't regret that anymore.

 

The End  
19/02/16


End file.
